


What Could Have Been

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 22:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Too often Jack imagines what might’ve happened if Ianto had stayed behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Could Have Been

Too often Jack imagines what might’ve happened if Ianto had stayed behind.

He imagines saying “No, stay here. I’ll go on my own.” Imagines the hurt look on Ianto’s face, the betrayal in his eyes, the resignation with which he’d obey, unwilling to put more unwanted pressure on their strange, strained relationship. He imagines hurrying to Thames House, pushing his way in, confronting the 456. There was no way they’d have been able to do anything there in that room, that trap, no way they’d have been able to get out alive. He imagines Ianto’s devastation as he and the others watch his death and the massacre of the employees inside the Thames House over the broadcast on the computers. He imagines Ianto would be safe.

He imagines it would be Ianto kneeling over him in the ugly gym used as a morgue, Ianto holding him gently, helping him back into life. He imagines his blue eyes staring down at him, sad and betrayed and tired and loving and ever so old. He imagines one or the other of them uttering the words, the “I love you” that never really made it past desperation, and the other responding in kind. He imagines Ianto survived.

Sometimes, horribly, sadistically, shamefully, he imagines he’d taken Gwen with him to the house. Imagines shoving Ianto back down in the chair. “You can work computers better than Gwen. Stay here and talk to Lois. Monitor the systems. You know what to do. Rhys, take that laptop and go. One of us will contact you when we need you.”

He imagines Ianto’s reluctant nod. He imagines the transference of weaponry and tools between him and Gwen, the curt nod he’d give Jack, his eyes belying the apprehension and love and hurt. He imagines himself and Gwen storming into Thames House and demanding obedience from the 456. He imagines the destruction. He imagines awakening to two men, to Ianto’s arms around him and Rhys beside them, his around Gwen’s body. Somehow, in his imagination, he can’t bring himself to feel as guilty. Somewhere, he’s glad it wasn’t Ianto.

And that hurts him. But he can feel it in his gut, the guilt that he’d ever let Ianto leave the warehouse. He doesn’t know why Ianto had followed him so blindly that day, supported him so readily when they’d been so unstable before, when he’d only just revealed to his lover all the things he didn’t know and all the depths he might never learn of.

It hurts, because every time he hears Gwen’s voice on the phone, or secretly checks up on Rhiannon, he knows Ianto should have never left that warehouse.


End file.
